For the Best

A landscape featuring coffee that’s only sometimes made the right way, ruptured pimples, and a burrow owl’s wormhole examines what it means to be told it’s all ‘for the best’. A phrase often offered as consolation in the aftermath of a big move, bad night out, or romantic rejection, it does little to soften any emotional blow. Both personal and relatable, these poems chronicle two years of hurting and healing in constant motion and competition with each other.

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In Nia Mahmud’s sophomore collection of poems, aches don’t disappear, they just change shape. From curt conversations to wordy prose poems, this chapbook explores what it’s like to look at a wound and not always know the cure.